Afghans: 52 die in NATO attack; alliance disputes

The allegation was raised as the founder of WikiLeaks claimed thousands of U.S. attacks could be investigated for evidence of war crimes, and a leading human rights group alleged that NATO has an "incoherent process" for dealing with civilian casualties.

Some of the more than 90,000 secret U.S. military documents on the Afghanistan war posted Sunday on the Web by WikiLeaks included unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings.

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the Afghan government was "shocked" that such a large number of documents were leaked but that most of the information wasn't new. He said Afghan officials studying the papers were particularly interested in ones describing incidents that resulted in civilian casualties.

A statement by Karzai's office said an investigation by Afghan intelligence determined that a NATO rocket slammed into the village of Rigi in the Sangin district of Helmand province, one of the most violent areas of the country.

Karzai expressed his condolences in a telephone conversation with villagers and called on the U.S.-led alliance to make protection of civilians "their priority during their operations."

The U.S.-led command said a joint NATO-Afghan investigation into the alleged attack "has thus far revealed no evidence of civilians injured or killed."